"We're almost in an identical place (as last year)," he said of the two teams. "We're a little less fast, but we've gotten a little deeper. It will be a very good meet."

So good that some events may feature state-qualifying times from all six swimmers, Strickler said.

"We expect that to place in the top five probably will require a state cut," he said. "Probably in some events, everybody will make the state cut."

Strickler also expects Dow pool records to fall.

"In some events, depending on who swims them, we could have two or three people break the pool record in one event," he said.

In the 200 freestyle, for example, Strickler said that Dow's Brad Craig and Gabe Strickler and Groves' Alex Tyler and James Schlabach would all have a shot at the pool record if they swim in that event.

"Nick Miller is very close to the pool record in diving, and all the relays' (pool records) are going to come under stiff competition," Strickler added.

So far for Dow, Mike Pankratz, Strickler, Craig, Justin Arnosky, Matt Grandjean, Zach Lee, Ian Smith and Miller have qualified for state; and Dow has qualified in all three relays. The coach said Ian Hotchkiss is very close to qualifying times in three events.

For its part, Groves has already qualified about 12 swimmers for state.

Strickler said that while the state meet is the big one, Friday's meet will still be very intense.

"This one's for fun, the state meet's for history," he said. "This one, we like to see where we are and see what we need to do. … (But) we're going to go out and race in this one. Yeah, we'll spend some emotion. This one is in front of the home crowd."

At last year's state finals, Groves finished 54 points ahead of second-place Birmingham Seaholm and 63 ahead of Dow. But Strickler said Dow has narrowed the gap considerably for this year's finals, which will be March 10-11 at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti.

Based on their current times, he figures Groves would beat Dow by 10 to 20 points in the finals.

"We've got to out-train them by a quarter to half a second (in each event), ideally by about half a second (to win)," Strickler said.

Chemics' LaRose beats best time by five seconds

Midland High swimmer Nolan LaRose beat his best time in the 500-yard freestyle by about five seconds in Friday's home meet against Saginaw Heritage.

LaRose swam the event in 6:27.34, taking third place.

Dow cheer team wins competition at Meridian

The Dow High cheer team won a competition Thursday at Meridian High School.

The Chargers scored 612 points, Houghton Lake was second with 598.4, Meridian third with 565.4 and Roscommon fourth with 395.2.

Dow scored 179 in round one, 165 in round two and 268 in round three. Meridian's totals were 175.5, 156.9 and 233.

Meridian won the junior varsity competition with 480.5 points, and Dow was second with 479.4.